In a recent apology statement issued in response to BAN’s discovery of two mercury-containing monitors at an undocumented facility in Hong Kong, Total Reclaim cited business pressures such as a drop in commodity prices and increasing labor costs, and emphasized the “dramatically increasing volume of flat-screen devices” as contributing factors to its “ethical lapses.”

The study found that nearly one-third of 200 tracked devices had been sent overseas by multiple companies, including Dell Reconnect, a partnership with Goodwill. As a result of the investigation, the e-Stewards program, which counts Total Reclaim as a founding member, has revoked its certification for two years, while citing a “broken” economic and regulatory system that fails to provide “a sustainable and ethical electronics recycling infrastructure.”

This comes as device ownership and data creation are growing substantially. The Pew Research Center found that 36% of Americans owned three devices — a smartphone, computer, and tablet — in 2015, compared with 15% in 2012. This proliferation of devices has caused toxic impacts at unregulated overseas facilities, far outside the purview of customers.

Prior to disposal, their use is generating a secondary environmental footprint via WiFi and mobile Internet use, drawing on natural resources to power a sprawling network of cloud data centers that support increasing storage, sharing, and streaming.

10/21/2013

Contributed reporting to the Gotham Gazette special report exploring community responses to Mayor Bloomberg’s plan, “A Stronger, More Resilient New York,” one year after Hurricane Sandy. You can read the series here.

12/07/2012

Corporations have long collected data generated by and/or relevant to their operations –- everything from sales figures, to permit applications, to industry trends and customer behavior. Increasingly, however, regulatory and watchdog groups are demanding that companies provide information about the impact of their activities on society and the environment.

As the corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement has gained traction, indices and lists that seek to quantify and rank company activities according to sustainability principles have proliferated. Financial analysts, media groups, and independent consultancies today produce annual assessments of everything from the amount of carbon companies put into the atmosphere to the sustainability of their supply chain management and the diversity of their boards. Those metrics, in turn, are often used by customers, investors, and prospective job candidates to determine their level of engagement with a particular company.

Read the full article on PhilanTopic, a Foundation Center blog, by clicking here.

11/30/2012

Leonida Wanyama sat at her living room table in her mud-and-sticks house at the base of the Lugulu Hills in western Kenya contemplating her assets. Her fifteen-year-old son Gideon had been sent home from boarding school because she couldn't pay the latest tuition bill. Her four-year-old daughter Dorcas was begging for more food, even though the cupboard was bare. Her husband Peter, weak from malaria, a condition worsened by malnutrition, did what he could to feed his family, but the planting season was just beginning and themaize crop wouldn't be ready to harvest for months. Leonida decided to sell her last goat for a thousand shillings -- enough to convince Gideon's principal to take him back as she struggled to come up with the remaining tuition. Food would have to wait.

Click here to read the review of The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change by Roger Thurow. The review is published on PhilanTopic, a Foundation Center blog.

10/10/2012

The most effective way to create change that benefits humans above the bottom line is to combine social change efforts with the profit motive under the umbrella of a multinational corporation.

So writes Timothy J. Mohin in his new book Changing Business From the Inside Out: A Treehugger's Guide to Working in Corporations. And with an eighteen-year career in the field known as corporate responsibility (CR), he provides a wealth of knowledge to back up his claim.

Read the full article on Philanthropy News Digest, a Foundation Center blog, by clicking here.

08/06/2008

A draft study about water quality in Pine Lake that has been sitting dormant for two years could be reviewed soon. The city’s former drainage engineer, Eric LaFrance, will return to work for the city again as the Senior Stormwater Program Engineer beginning Aug. 18. One of his first projects will be to review the study.

Businesses in Sammamish will have their annual opportunity to recycle everything from cardboard to computers next week. The city will sponsor a business recycling collection event from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. August 13 at Eastlake High School, 400 228th Avenue Northeast. Paul Devine, an organizer for the event, said the collection is designed for businesses to get rid of items that accumulate in small quantities, like wood pallets and fluorescent light bulbs.

07/02/2008

City planners are proposing a series of changes to development and
drainage requirements in Sammamish that they say will reduce
bureaucracy and protect the environment.

But some environmentalists say those two goals are inconsistent. At a June 19 meeting, the city’s Planning Commission heard recommendations about
some of the less controversial proposals to amend portions of the
municipal building code. Proposed changes to the critical areas code
that came up at another recent meeting have generated more controversy.

Sammamish planners want to encourage developers to minimize their impact on the environment by offering them benefits. City planners are proposing a low impact development
ordinance that would reward developers of commercial and large
residential projects for using a host of storm water methods favored by
environmentalists. Low impact development is a storm water management and land
development strategy that aims to minimize soil disturbance and
impervious surfaces, protect natural features and add vegetation.